


Never Fear Those Mountains in the Distance

by torakowalski



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 10:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/pseuds/torakowalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Phil doesn’t remember all the things that Natasha tried to teach him, but he knows that if someone scares him, he’s supposed to run.</i>
</p>
<p>Or, once upon a time, Phil Coulson got turned into a seven-year-old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Fear Those Mountains in the Distance

**Author's Note:**

> For a tumblr anon who asked for de-aged Phil with the Avengers babysitting... which is sort of what happens?
> 
> The Tracksuit Baddies are stolen from Matt Fraction's fantastic Hawkguy, which I totally recommend if you haven't already been reading it.

Phil’s kind of scared.

He’s all alone in some kind of giant warehouse place and, from further down the corridor, he can hear people shouting, which means that the tracksuit guys who snatched him have noticed that Phil escaped.

That part was pretty easy; they didn’t even lock the door properly, like the fact that he’s only a little kid was going to stop him picking the lock.

“Yo, little bro, come back!” Phil hears.  He presses his back to the wall and tries to be invisible.  He wishes he had superpowers; that would be so useful right now.  “Come on, bro, we have candy.”

Phil rolls his eyes.  He’s  _seven_ , not a baby who doesn’t know not to take candy from strangers.

“Fucking brat, come back right now.” Tracksuit Guy doesn’t sound friendly anymore and Phil doesn’t remember all the things that Natasha tried to teach him, but he knows that if someone scares him, he’s supposed to run.

So he runs.

He runs and he keeps running until his legs hurt and he has a huge stitch in his side.  It feels like his feet are going faster than he is and he keeps bumping into walls every time he turns a corner but it doesn’t feel safe to stop, so he doesn’t.

Then suddenly the concrete floor of the corridor disappears and Phil falls.  He tries not to make any noise, but it takes him by surprise and he screams before he can stop himself.  Then he bangs hard into something that feels like a step and then again and again and it’s impossible not to cry out.

Phil lands at the bottom of the stairs with his arm hurting and his butt hurting and he wants to cry.  He bites his bottom lip hard so it’ll stop wobbling and shakily gets to his feet. 

He’s even more lost than he was before.  At least there were windows upstairs, down here, there’s nothing but darkness.

He puts his hands against the wall and shuffles forward carefully, screwing his eyes shut when he bumps into things, because if there are monsters down here, he can probably be braver if he doesn’t see them.

He’s just reached something that feels like a door, standing on tiptoes to reach the lock, which is really high up, when something explodes on the other side of it.

Phil drops down onto his knees and covers his head, just like Dr Banner taught him to.  He counts to twenty but nothing else blows up so he takes a peak over the top of his folded arms. 

The room’s full of light now and half of the opposite wall is missing, little puffs of smoke and dust swirling around in the sunlight.

Phil stands up.  If the Tracksuit Guys have found him, he’s not going to hide on the floor and let them know that he’s scared of them.

“Hey, Coulson Lite, you in here?” Phil hears and oh, it’s not a Tracksuit Guy, it’s Iron Man.

“Tony,” Phil calls and then Iron Man steps through the hole in the wall.

“There you are,” he says.  His voice is all weird and distorted but Phil’s pretty sure he sounds happy to see him.

Phil tries to think of something to say – the Avengers all say rude things to each other and then laugh a lot when they’re fighting people – but he just really, really wants to go home.

“Shit, kid, you’re not going to cry, are you?” Tony asks, clanking over to Phil and dropping down to his knees.  “You’re safe now blah blah blah.”

“No,” Phil sniffs, folding his arms, “of  _course_  not.”

Tony grins and ruffles Phil’s hair.  His hand’s really heavy when he’s pretending to be Iron Man, but he’s careful and it doesn’t hurt.  “Come on then, want a ride?”

Phil nods so hard that Tony laughs at him and he totally forgets to be scared anymore.

“Hold on,” Tony reminds him and fires up his boots, flying them out to the little yard outside the building and then far away.

***

There’s no one in Avengers Tower when they get home, which Phil tries not to be disappointed about.  

“All out searching for you, brat,” Tony says, ruffling Phil’s hair again, but with a human hand this time.  “I have never seen those assholes – um, asshats, is that better? JARVIS, is that more kid-appropriate? – I’ve never seen those  _guys_  as freaked out as they were when they realised Cap’d lost you.”

“It wasn’t Steve’s fault,” Phil says automatically.

Tony laughs.  “You can be the one to tell Barton that.”  He walks over to the refrigerator in the corner.  Phil doesn’t really want to be on his own right now, so he follows.  “Want a drink?  I’ve got…” He trails off, head inside the fridge. “I have nothing you can drink.  JARVIS where are the kiddy drinks?”

“There are some fruit juices behind the Dom Perignon, sir.” JARVIS is great, Phil really likes JARVIS.

“Ha, what do you know, so there are,” Tony crows and bounces back out of the fridge with a green juice box in his hands.  He grins at Phil and presents it to him with a little fanfare  _tada!_  noise.

“Thank you,” Phil says, because his mom isn’t here but she’ll still somehow know and be upset if he’s rude.

“You are fuck- fudging adorable,” Tony says.  “You should stop that.  You’re almost, nearly, kind of making me want kids and Pepper’s too busy and important for all that.”

“Sorry?” Phil offers around his straw.

“Ugh,” Tony says and sighs.

Phil decides to ignore Tony because Tony’s weird and drinks his apple juice instead. 

“Sirs,” JARVIS says, “Agents Barton and Romanoff are – ” The elevator door bangs open and JARVIS sighs.  “Never mind.”

“Where is he?” Clint asks, tumbling out of the elevator. He’s still wearing his bow, which he doesn’t usually do inside.  “Phil?”

Phil doesn’t mean to move, he means to be dignified and grown up, but it’s _Clint_.  Clint’s been his favourite ever since Phil woke up in the middle of a grown-up’s jacket and found Captain America and other people standing over him looking shocked.

He drops his empty juice box on the floor and launches himself across the room.

Clint grabs him up straight away, wraps his arms around Phil’s back and holds him really tight.  Phil clutches at Clint’s black jacket and wonders if he’ll be allowed to never, ever let go.

“Are you hurt?” Natasha asks, walking in a circle around Clint and Phil.  She never usually touches him, but she sort of taps him on the shoulder like she’s testing to see if he still works.

“No,” Phil says, muffled in Clint’s shoulder.

“He fell down some stairs,” Tony says.  “JARVIS did a scan. Nothing’s broken.”

“We should take him to SHIELD,” Natasha says and taps him again. “No offense to JARVIS, but they have real doctors.”

“No,” Phil says again.  He went to SHIELD when the Avengers first found him.  He got poked around a lot and he didn’t enjoy it.

“You really okay?” Clint asks, leaning back so he can look Phil in the eye.  “You sure?”

Phil nods seriously.  “Tony rescued me,” he says.

“I did,” Tony agrees proudly.  “Well, it’s possible that he rescued himself, mostly, but I was definitely there.”

Clint grins, bouncing Phil around a bit until Phil can sit on his hip.  Phil’s too big for that, and normally he’d complain, but he was  _really_  scared earlier.

“When you grow up, you are going to be so pissed that Stark had to help you out,” Clint says.

Phil doesn’t know what to say to that.  The others talk about  _when Phil grows up_ like it’s something they’re looking forward to, but Clint never usually does.  Natasha told Phil once that it was because Clint was scared that it wasn’t going to happen, which didn’t make a lot of sense to him, but she told him not to worry about it, so he didn’t.

“Did Steve find my stuff?” Phil asks, suddenly remembering.  He and Steve were in Midtown Comics when Phil got snatched, which is pretty much Phil’s favourite place ever.  Steve bought him a whole bag full of comics and Phil really hopes they weren’t lost.

“Your comics are in Agent Barton’s quarters,” JARVIS tells him, “entirely undamaged.”

Clint laughs, pressing his face into the top of Phil’s hair for a second.  He seems kind of shaky.  “Right, obviously that’s what you’re most worried about.  Want to come show me what you bought?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Phil says, because of course he does.  He kicks at Clint’s hip a bit.  “Put me down.  I don’t need babying.”

“What if I do, huh?” Clint asks, but lets Phil down anyway.

“Don’t be silly,” Phil tells him firmly.  He turns around and waves at Tony.  “Thank you for coming to get me.”

Tony’s face does that weird pained thing again and Clint curls a hand around Phil’s shoulder.  “Yeah,” he says, voice sounding deeper than it’s supposed to. “Thanks, Stark.”

Tony waves them away.  He pulls a huge bottle of something out of the fridge and shows it to Natasha.  “Agent Romanoff, some Dom Perignon?”

“You could feed a country for the price of that bottle,” Natasha says in that tone she uses when they’re about to start bickering.

“Come on,” Clint says, steering Phil into an elevator.  “I want to hear the epic story of your escape.”

Phil nods seriously.  “It was pretty epic.”

“I bet it was.” Clint’s quiet for a minute while they ride up to his floor then he says, quietly, “I was pretty much terrified when Steve said he’d lost you.”

“Sorry,” Phil says and reaches out for Clint’s hand, squeezing tight.

“Nah.” Clint gives Phil’s hand a little shake.  “You won’t remember this, but I told you ages ago that you’re always worth it.”

Phil ducks his head, pleased, then the elevator dings as it reaches Clint’s floor.  “Come on,” he says, tugging, “I got the new Spider-man.”

“Spider-man isn’t as cool as you’d think,” Clint says, but lets Phil pull him along anyway.

/End


End file.
